Are richer, dearer to this filial heart,
Than all the monuments of proudest art.
Yet, yet a little, and thy child shall come
To join a mother in this decent tomb,

This only spot of all the world is mine,

And soon my dust, sweet shade! shall mix with thine.

The epitaph on lady Berry's monument in Stepney church-yard, forms a striking contrast to the assuming airs of a dashing female of the modern ton:

Come, ladies, ye that would appear

Like angels fine, come dress you here ;
Come dress you at this marble stone,
And make this humble grave your own;
Which once adorn'd as fair a mind,
As e'er yet lodg'd in woman kind.
So she was dress'd, whose humble life

Was free from pride, was free from strife;
Free from all envious brawls and jars,
Of human life the civil wars ;

These ne'er disturb'd her peaceful mind,
Which still was gentle, still was kind.
Her very looks, her garb, her mein,
Disclos'd the humble soul within.
Trace her through every scene of life,
View her as widow, virgin, wife;
Still the same....humble she appears,

The same in youth, the same in years;

The same in low and high estate,

Ne'er vexed with this, ne'er mov'd with that.

The elegant inscription on the tomb of Mrs. Newte, written by her husband, is not a testimony to her excellence only, but also to his affection.

I weep on earth, while thy triumphant soul,
Best, dearest, lovely friend, is lifted high,
To taste the peace of heaven, reserv'd alone
For those like thee who live, like thee who die.

Thy eye was intellect, thy lip was love

Soon was the blessing from my bosom torn, When scarce possess❜d, tho' innocence was thine, Mild as the lucid softness of the morn.

Yet was not innocence alone thy praise,
'Twas virtue, active as the living fire
That gilds the earth; 'twas charity divine,
Bright like the bounty of thy matchless sire.

Bless'd be the day when love oppos'd thy fate,
Whose fond cares held back thy parting breath,
And in the tott'ring hour of mortal pain,

Which sooth'd with sympathy the pangs of death.

The word of the all-ruling God is past,
And now farewell, sweet partner of my life,
I must not mourn th' irreparable stroke:
Heav'n gains an angel, while I lose a wife.

The following, written by Gray on Mrs. Jane Clerke, displays forcibly the virtues of a matron :

Lo! where this silent marble weeps,

A friend, a wife, a mother sleeps;
A heart within, whose sacred cell
The peaceful virtues lov'd to dwell:
Affection warm, and faith sincere,
And soft humanity were there.
In agony, in death resign'd,

She felt the wound she left behind.

Her infant image, here below,

Sits smiling on a father's woe;

Whom, what avails, while yet he strays
Along the lonely vale of days;

A pang to sacred sorrow dear,

A sigh, an unavailing tear,

Till time shall ev'ry grief remove,

With life, with memory, and with love.

Genius and virtue seem to have been closely united in the character of Dr. Rose of Chiswick, as commemorated by Mr. Murphy, in the following epitaph:

Whoe'er thou art, with silent footsteps tread

The hallow'd mould where Rose reclines his head,

Ah! let not folly one kind tear deny,

But pensive pause where truth and honour lie;
His, the gay wit that fond affection drew;

Oft heard, and oft admir'd, yet ever new ;

The heart that melted at another's grief:
The hand in secret that bestow'd relief;
Science untinctur'd with the pride of schools,
And native goodness, free from formal rules;
With zeal through life, he toil'd in learning's cause,
But more, fair virtue, to promote thy laws;
His every action sought the noblest end;
The tender husband, father, brother, friend.
Perhaps e'en now, from yonder realms of day,
To his lov'd relatives be sends a ray :
Pleas'd to behold affections like his own,
With filial duty raise this votive stone.

Flattery is so generally confined to the great, that we have but little reason to suspect the truth of those praises which are bestowed upon such as have lived in the humble rank of an obscure situation. Dr. Hawkesworth did not think it beneath the dignity of his pen, to record the virtues of a person of this class, in an inscription on a tomb in Bromley church-yard, which runs thus :

Near this place
lies the body of

ELIZABETH MONK,

who departed this life on the 27th of August, 1753,

aged 101.

She was the widow of John Monk of this place, Blacksmith, her second husband, to whom she had been a wife near fifty years, by whom she had no children (and of the issue of her first marriage none lived to the second) but virtue would not suffer her to be childless. An infant, to whom, and to whose

father and mother she had been nurse (such is the uncertainty of temporal prosperity) became dependant upon strangers for the necessaries of life: to him she afforded the protection of a mother. This parental charity was returned with filial affection, and she was supported in the feebleness of age, by him whom she had cherished in the helplessness of infancy. Let it be remembered, that there is no station in which industry will not obtain power to be liberal, nor any character on which liberality will not confer honour. She had been long prepared by a simple and unaffected piety, for that awful moment, which, however, delayed, is universally sure. How few are allowed an equal time of probation! How many, by their lives, appear to presume on more! To preserve the memory of this person, but yet more to perpetuate the lesson of her life, this stone was erected by voluntary contribution.

DUKE DE MONTPENSIER.

THE daily vicissitudes of human life present an inexhaustible theme for reflection. Youth, beauty, talents, grandeur, and riches, are often only the pageants of a day, and elude the fond grasp of their possessors: the young must become old; the handsome lose their charms, from disease, or the natural alterations of time; the wit becomes a dotard; and the rich often become poor. It is, however, a consoling circumstance, that adversity strengthens the mind, and sometimes counterbalances the sufferings it occasions, by the lessons it imparts. Many characters have shone with